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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23537278">inhale, exhale</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dain/pseuds/Dain'>Dain</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Original Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bonding, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family History, Friendship, Gen, Hair Braiding, Hurt/Comfort, I'm sad that Luke goes off to Dagobah immediately after leaving Tatooine so I wrote this to fix it, Movie: Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Slavery, Trauma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 16:48:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,123</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23537278</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dain/pseuds/Dain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She could braid her own hair better than he could in her sleep and they both knew it. She could have braided her own hair while she was in the fresher, or she could have left it down and gone straight to her quarters and locked herself in and fallen asleep, and they both knew that too.</p><p>Instead, she was here.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Leia Organa &amp; Luke Skywalker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>59</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>inhale, exhale</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Leia was exhausted.</p><p>She looked exhausted, too, from what she could see in the mirror. Pale-faced and dull-eyed, her hair hanging loose, about as far from the dignified Princess of Alderaan as she could get.</p><p>She should be jubilant, she knew; she should be overcome with joy to know that Han was in the Falcon’s cockpit that very moment, alive and well and probably still arguing with Chewbacca and Lando about whether or not he was fit to fly. She should be relieved that they’d succeeded, that they’d all made it out with only minimal injuries. She should be content.</p><p>She mostly felt tired.</p><p>She finally forced herself out of the fresher, pale-faced and dull-eyed and loose-haired as she was. It did her no good to stay in there; she wasn’t fixing any of those problems by staring at herself in the mirror, and the effort of doing anything more than leaving felt beyond her reach.</p><p>Luke looked up at her from where he was slouched in the lounge seat. “Do you want me to braid your hair?” he asked, and patted the empty space next to him on the seat.</p><p>She nodded, and moved across the space between them with as much grace as she could muster, settling herself on the edge of the seat with her back to him.</p><p>“What style?” he asked as he started gathering her hair in his hands.</p><p>“Something simple.” He only knew a couple of Alderaanian braid styles, she knew, and none of them were complicated, but she hoped he could read between the lines. She was in her own clothing now, work clothes, practical and sturdy, and she needed her hair to be her own, too.</p><p>Luke hummed in acknowledgment and combed his fingers through her (already very thoroughly combed) hair, the glove he’d pulled on over the exposed wiring on his injured hand catching against her hair.</p><p>She could braid her own hair better than he could in her sleep and they both knew it. She could have braided her own hair while she was in the fresher, or she could have left it down and gone straight to her quarters and locked herself in and fallen asleep, and they both knew that too.</p><p>Instead, she was here.</p><p>Luke’s hands on her hair were firm and steady and gentle and a little bit clumsy. There was no one holding her still, no sharp tugs on her scalp as practiced, impersonal hands went through the motions. There was an occasional muttered curse as Luke dropped part of the braid and had to start over, and there was the occasional brush of his fingers against the nape of her neck, and there was the feeling that she was safe and loved and cared for.</p><p>She closed her eyes and breathed the way her mama had taught her, in and out, slow and measured and deliberate. She was safe, she was out, she was <em>free</em>.</p><p>She opened her eyes again when Luke broke the silence.</p><p>“My father was a slave,” he said. “Did I ever tell you that?”</p><p>“No,” Leia said. Everything had gone very, very still around her, like the galaxy was holding its breath. “No, you didn’t.”</p><p>“He was.” The words were deceptively simple, hiding a number of potential truths. “And his mother before him. She was the first Skywalker, as far as we know.”</p><p>Leia exhaled. “It was only for a day.”</p><p>“One minute,” Luke said, his voice trembling with anger and exhaustion to match her own, “one second of enslavement is more than anyone should have to bear.” He stopped braiding, and she could hear him draw in a breath and let it out, once, twice, three times, until he was calmer. “It happened, Leia,” he said, and she felt the rhythm of his braiding resume. “Whatever you need, I’m here.”</p><p><em>I need this</em>, she thought. Out loud she said, “I killed him.”</p><p>“Who?”</p><p>“Jabba. He had me on a chain, so I wrapped it around his neck and killed him.” She could still remember how it felt - not good, exactly, nothing about the situation had felt good, but definitely <em>satisfying</em>, like it had filled a need somewhere deep inside her. “I don’t regret it.”</p><p>“You shouldn’t,” Luke said, without missing a beat, and she didn’t have to see his face to know there was awe on it.</p><p>(“I grew up not too far from here,” he’d said while she’d still been adjusting to the heat and the dryness of the air, and his face as he’d been dragged away by guards had been full of righteous fury and defiance. She wondered what it had been like, free but still in Jabba’s shadow for all those years.)</p><p>“What do you think will happen to them?” she asked. “The other slaves.”</p><p>“The same thing that happens to the rest of Jabba’s estate,” Luke said. “I’m sure some will try to run, but they won’t get far.”</p><p>A shudder ran down Leia’s spine. It had been one day for her, and she thought about that now not to deny herself her own pain but rather to remember that there were countless others for whom slavery was their life.</p><p>“Someday,” she said, “someday we should go back. We should do something. I don’t care if it means killing every slaveowner, every slaver in the galaxy. We have to do <em>something</em>.”</p><p>“We will,” Luke said easily, but she knew he meant it. How strange, that she’d known him for years and yet never known this piece of him. <em>My father was a slave.</em> But he never spoke of it, always spoke of the pilot and the Jedi, never the slave.</p><p>They fell into a comfortable silence, Leia riding out the bundle of confusing emotions in her breast. She was still tired, but tired like she might feel after a good day’s work, not just run down and defeated. Tired like she’d accomplished something.</p><p>“Just about done,” Luke said, and then a moment later: “I don’t have a tie for this.”</p><p>“Hang on,” she said, and started rifling through her pockets, knowing she always had one or two on her and yet, somehow... “Oh. Neither do I.”</p><p>“You always have a hair tie,” Luke said accusingly, and laughter bubbled up from somewhere inside Leia in a childish giggle she didn’t have the energy to repress.</p><p>“Well, come on, then,” she said, standing up and forcing Luke to scramble after her so he could keep ahold of the braid. “I’m sure there’s one around here somewhere.” She smiled at him, not feeling up to thanking him out loud (for the braid, for talking, for everything) but trusting that he would understand.</p><p>He smiled back at her. “Lead the way.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Star Wars has been consuming me for the past few months, <a href="https://moonbittern.tumblr.com/">come talk to me about it on Tumblr.</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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